August 19, 2017 AT 4:00 am

Michele Baker: Let’s start by talking about the exhibition itself. Can you tell me a little more about Thresholds? What does the piece involve?

Mat Collishaw: Thresholds is a VR project. It’s quite a specific virtual reality project, involving a lot of other sensory stimulation, such as haptic interaction. The warmth from the fire is created by a heater, and we are also bringing smells in there, as well as, of course, the scene outside the window.

I work in a lot of different media anyway; paintings and laser scanning, for example, so VR was an obvious thing to work with. Though I am not really a techie person, this medium can give you a 360-degree full immersion in the image, obviously something that needs addressing if you’re an artist, I think.

But I wanted a project that was interesting as an idea, not just a magic forest with unicorns and little elves running around, or a documentary film. I wanted to make something that was a concept, because I am a conceptual artist, although my work is very accessible.